With rents rising, a project manager bought a 388-square-foot apartment in the center of Almaty, Kazakhstan’s largest city, and leaned in on the design.
At the end of 2022, Kassym Baimukhametov was living in Almaty, Kazakhstan’s largest city, when he encountered a problem experienced by many: The rent was too damn high.
“I decided to buy my own place because prices for rent went up,” said Mr. Baimukhametov, 38, who works as a project manager in business and technology. “The universe was giving me signs.”
Rather than paying rent, he decided he’d be better off investing in real estate. Not needing much space, he began searching for studio apartments and found a 388-square-foot, new-construction unit for 31.5 million Kazakhstani tenge ($60,000). He closed in February 2023.
“If felt small,” he admitted. “But it was a good price, in a good location in the center of the city.”
The box of a space had a low ceiling, small windows and was essentially featureless, but that didn’t bother Mr. Baimukhametov. “It was completely empty, which made it perfect for me,” he said. “I wanted to have a design according to my wishes, and this way, we wouldn’t have to do any demolition work.”
